disasters – Integra LLC

Tag Archive for: disasters

Immediate Care, is there an app for that?

PEPID Elements: Environmental Medicine & Disasters allows users to identify natural resources around them that can be used in emergency situations. The app includes identification, management and treatment of environmental disaster medicine conditions including mountain medicine, survival situations for both natural and manmade scenarios, heat injury and illness, cold injury and illness, electrical and lighting injury, and bites and stings. The comprehensive treatment section has a complete drug database containing adult and pediatric dosing, indications, adverse reactions and administration information. Elements was designed by PEPID, provider of medical software and drug databases.

March 2, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Pakistan Floods – Use of Information and Communication Technology

One of the things that I spent a great deal of my time during the first half of this year is being launched today. With great support from Intel and Microsoft we at NetHope are launching a 60 page case study report on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the Pakistan floods last year.

In this report we look at how the humanitarian community responded, how ICT played a role in the response and how information management was utilized during the response.

Back in 2006, Paul Currion wrote a report on the use of ICT in the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. In our report we look back at his findings and identify ways in which things have progressed in these five years. Interestingly enough in many cases not much has changed.

One of the key things that has changed in these five years is easier access to connectivity. Whereas in 2005 most organizations relied upon V-SATs as the only available connection, the humanitarian organizations today relied much more upon broadband and mobile connections.

It is our hope that this report provides a great insight into the state of ICT and information management within the humanitarian system and that it generates discussions on how to further improve.

I want to use this opportunity to thank all those who contributed to the report, either by responding to our survey or be willing to participate in our interviews. Last but not least I want to thank everyone who helped review my often rough text and special thanks to our media queen Paige for making the report look so nice.

The report can be downloaded here

September 13, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture, Food Security & Rural Development, Areas of Expertise, Biodiversity, Democracy & Governance, Environment, Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Next Task Order: Flying Robots

Or more precisely, swarming micro air vehicles, to create a communications cloud where infrastructure is destroyed during an emergency like an earthquake. SciDev reports on a Swiss innovation that hovers at the extreme end of ICT4D – at least for now. Flying robots could help in disaster rescue – SciDev.Net.

But the same team also produced the awesome SenseFly drone, which costs around 9K and fits in a briefcase. The possibilities for monitoring and mapping for biodiversity and agriculture appear to be endless. Check out the video.

Lest you think I’m a shill for the Lausanne techies, let me take the opportunity to draw your attention to some homebrew options. These won’t create the swarming communications cloud suitable for a major disaster, but a lot can happen.

Grassroots Mapping is a network of technology hackers that use balloon and kite mounted digital cameras in mapping, to serve as “community satellites” – a low cost remote sensing alternative to satellite imagery that can get surprisingly good results. Significantly, the technology is affordable and can be put in the hands of communities for participatory planning, independent monitoring, and access to information – key aspects of our quest for good governance. The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science is a sister initiative working to develop new technologies for grassroots mappers.

I’ve mentioned Participatory GIS – the use of GIS in community mapping – in earlier posts. PPGIS is a virtual network online consisting of resources and a very active email list to support a peer-to-peer learning network spanning the globe.

So there you have it – we started with a drone swarm and ended up with a kite. The needs of tomorrow (and today) will be well served by one or the other.

As the wise one said, knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

March 2, 2011/by actualize

Democracy & Governance, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Competition: New Approaches to Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction

There are 22 days left to submit proposals for innovative ways to address disaster recovery for the World Reconstruction Conference (May 10-13 2011 in Geneva). Winners will be invited to the conference. All qualified entries will be invited to submit a poster presentation of their idea.

From the website:

“The focus of the competition is on innovation in services, products and approaches that have been implemented at the local level in disaster recovery and reconstruction. The aim is to:

showcase innovative and new solutions developed in the wake of disasters;
develop awareness for their use in other and future recovery operations;
provide a space to build partnerships to address key challenges in scaling up and replicating.

“Sectors of interest include but are not limited to: housing, water and sanitation, education, health, energy, transportation, information and communication technology (ICT), monitoring and evaluation, environment, governance and institutional strengthening.”

Let’s get some ICT proposals out there.

February 8, 2011/by actualize

Tag Archive for: disasters

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